The present invention relates generally to systems for improving sanitation in toilet facilities and, more particularly, for encouraging good personal hygiene by users of toilet facilities.
In our prior U.S. Pat. No. 6,417,773, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, we noted that a pervasive cause of gastrointestinal illness is contamination of food by fecal microorganisms. A major source of such contamination is inadequate cleansing of the hands by food preparation personnel after the use of toilet facilities. Public health authorities regularly encourage institutional food service providers to admonish their employees to adhere to accepted sanitation procedures. In particular, food handlers are expected to thoroughly cleanse their hands after using the toilet. To achieve that end, training sessions and warning signs are used to educate employees about the dangers of inadequate cleansing, and to instill in them the habit of careful hand washing.
Similarly, children must be educated in the necessity of washing their hands to avoid the spread of gastrointestinal illness in the family. Having succeeded in toilet training their children, parents are then faced with the challenge of further educating them in personal cleanliness, something of which many children are blissfully unaware. No matter how frequently children are cautioned about hand washing, they are often over-anxious to return to their play and, forgetting about their parents' admonitions, rush to resume their activities, sans ablutions.
Outbreaks of viral illnesses have accentuated the need for good hygiene. For example, the SARS virus may be transmitted from person to person by touching contaminated surfaces, as may a host of other viruses. If the hands are not thoroughly cleansed after coming in contact with such a surface, the virus finds access to the body when fingers are put to the mouth or nose.
Solutions to these problems have been proposed, with marginal success. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,028,520 recites as one object to train children to wash their hands after using the toilet, accomplished by providing an annunciator triggered by a motion detector or a switch actuated by the toilet flush lever, whereupon a suitable recorded message is played admonishing the child to wash his or her hands. Such triggering means are less than satisfactory. In the case of a motion sensor, the annunciator is activated by motion not associated with toilet use, resulting in needless repetition of the message, and loss of its effectiveness. In the case of a lever-actuated switch, the switch must be coupled to the lever, requiring undesired mechanical modification of the toilet.
Our '773 patent provided an elegant solution to these problems. In accordance with the '773 patent, a recorded message is activated by the sound generated by the flow of water into the toilet bowl when the toilet is flushed. The system comprises a microphone positioned so as to intercept the sound generated by the flushing toilet, an amplifier, a controller, a voice chip or other audio storage means, and a speaker.
Although the system of the '773 patent provides an innovative solution to the foregoing problems, it requires sophisticated sound detection and recognition circuitry, capable of greater than 90% sound recognition and greater than 90% rejection of noise. Noise rejection is particularly important because false triggering greatly diminishes the effectiveness of the message. Noise rejection is complicated by the different acoustics of institutional restrooms and unpredictable background signals.
It is, therefore, the principal object of the present invention to provide a simplified apparatus and method for detecting the flushing of a toilet, particularly an institutional tankless toilet, to trigger an announcement urging a toilet user to wash his or her hands.